When I was younger, I thought it’d be fun to be a flight attendant: they get to fly to exotic places on the company dime, and they look so glamorous strolling through the airport with their uniforms and their rollaboard bags. As I’ve gotten older, though, I’ve learned that it’s not nearly as glamorous as it seems. Flight attendants might get to see the world, but they also have to deal with passengers, who are often angry, rude, drunk, messy, ill, or all five. And I suspect that witnessing the daily operations of the air industry—observing how the sausage gets made—strips away much of the fun and magic from air travel. Still, there’s nobody who knows more about air travel, so we’ve gathered stories from flight attendants who share secrets about the industry.